The invention pertains to improvements in the field of touch tone telephone systems having multiple extensions to which incoming calls need to be directed. Specifically, the invention provides the ability to route incoming calls automatically by detecting the caller ID and routing the call to the extension most often called by the person having that caller ID.
Caller ID has been in the prior art for several years now on personal and business lines. Caller ID is a system wherein the name and telephone number of the person making the call is transmitted to the called party using digital data transmitted between the first and second rings of a telephone call if the called party has subscribed to caller ID service. If the called party has subscribed to caller ID service and has a caller ID decoder or reception device or has a telephone which is capable of detecting and decoding the caller ID signals, the called party will be shown a display of the name and telephone number of the person who originated the call if that person has not put a block on their name and/or phone number or an error occurs.
Many prior art telephone systems and stand alone caller ID display devices can display caller ID information, but they are incapable of making automatic routing decisions based upon the caller ID information.
The prior art includes computer systems which receive information about the calling party and uses it. One example is U.S. Pat. No. 5,255,183. This patent teaches a system including a computer having hardware for interfacing the computer with the public telephone network. Incoming calls include automatic number identification data which identifies the calling telephone. The computer is further programmed to accept personal identification codes from the caller. The computer system uses the ANI data and the personal ID data from the caller to generate reports which indicate the location from which and time each caller called in so as to keep track of employees arrival and departure times from remote job sites.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,550,900 discloses a telephone message system which has a controller unit with caller ID capability which has one or more adjunct telephones all coupled to the controller by bridged connections to a single pair. The controller unit interfaces with a central provider through a video services network. A message routing capability is provided by providing for every party at the residence a mailbox of groups of telephone numbers of callers that typically call that party. These telephone numbers are provided to the controller unit. Upon receipt of a call from one of the telephone numbers, identified through caller ID, the incoming call is associated with the particular called party and the controller unit routes the call directly to the called party's mailbox where the caller leaves a message. The called party retrieves the messages in his mailbox only if the mailboxes are restricted access or other mailboxes if they are open.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,985,913 teaches an answering machine which stores a number of different messages each associated with a particular phone number. When a call comes in, the phone number of the caller is identified through caller ID data, and the answering machine compares the phone number with the list of phone numbers having associated messages. If a match is found, that message is played to the caller.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,680 teaches a telephone with automatic dialing capability which stores its own area code given to it by a user in an initialization step which is performed when the phone is installed or moved to a different area code. The phone stores incoming caller ID information including the area codes in the dialer memory. When a user requests the dialer to dial the number of a particular party, the phone dialer automatically compares its home area code with the area code it has stored for the number of the party to be called, and if the two area codes are different, the dialer automatically includes the area code in the dialed telephone number.
The specific problem to which the system of the invention provides a solution is the need for businesses which receive many phone calls to lower the labor costs associated with answering and routing such calls.
A need has arisen for a telephone system which can automatically route incoming calls based upon caller ID information.